Kalmar → Mariehamn: Gotland and the archipelagos

Visby THE CITY OF ROSES AND RUINS

The Hanseatic town’s ring wall, 3.4 km long with some 27 towers still standing, surrounds the medieval town — a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995.

Within the walls a dozen ruined medieval churches stand beside the cathedral of St Mary, consecrated in 1225.

In 1361 the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag landed and beat Gotland’s farmers outside the wall; the mass graves found there are among the best-known medieval battlefield finds.

Medeltidsveckan, the Medieval Week, fills the town every August; the Gotland Runt race rounds the island every summer.

Stockholm THE ARCHIPELAGO CAPITAL

The mark lies off Sandhamn at the archipelago’s edge: some 30 000 islands, islets and rocks between the city and the open sea.

Sandhamn is the home of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club (KSSS, 1830); the Gotland Runt offshore race starts and finishes here.

Landsort lighthouse on Öja at the archipelago’s southern tip is Sweden’s oldest, from the 1600s.

The warship Vasa sank in the harbour on her maiden voyage in 1628 and was raised in 1961 — the best-preserved 17th-century ship in the world, in her own museum on Djurgården.

Mariehamn THE WINDJAMMERS’ HOME

The capital of Åland, founded in 1861 and named after the Empress Maria Alexandrovna; the islands are Swedish-speaking, self-governing and demilitarised — no fortifications since the Crimean War (1856).

The four-masted steel barque Pommern (1903) lies in the Western Harbour as a museum ship, one of the last of the great grain-race windjammers.

Gustaf Erikson’s square-riggers sailed the Australian grain trade from here into the 1940s — the last commercial sailing fleet in the world.

Åland has its own flag, stamps and parliament; the ferries between Sweden and Finland call here for the tax-free trade.

Öland Bridge UNDER THE BRIDGE

Ölandsbron, opened in 1972, joins Kalmar to Öland across the Kalmar Sound — about 6 km long.

The high span near the Kalmar side gives ships some 36 m of clearance.

Borgholm THE CASTLE RUIN AND THE ROYAL SUMMER

Borgholm Castle stands as a great ruin on its cliff above the town: a medieval fortress rebuilt as a baroque palace, burnt out in 1806.

Solliden, the Swedish royal family’s summer residence, lies just south of it.

Långe Erik ÖLAND’S NORTHERN LIGHT

Långe Erik, lit in 1845, stands on a small island off Öland’s northern tip.

Here the Kalmar Sound opens to the sea; Gotland lies ahead to the north-east.

Kalmar THE CASTLE AND THE KEY

Kalmar castle guarded Sweden's border with Denmark for 400 years; the Kalmar Union of 1397 joined the three Nordic crowns here under one queen.

The Öland bridge from Kalmar, 6 km, opened in 1972; the island on the other side has 400 windmills and the royal summer house.